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Public sector

Case Study:

Gerencia de Informática de la Seguridad Social

25 October 2011

Gerencia de Informática de la Seguridad Social (GISS) is the social security department for information technology management in Spain. To manage the delivery of important public communications to Spanish citizens it has deployed Derdack’s notification software.

GISS sends regular communications to private citizens to keep them informed about the status of various pension and benefit applications. This includes letters, e-mails and SMS push messages. It previously used many systems running on a variety of IT platforms to send SMS communications. However GISS wanted to improve the way in which it used mobile communications alongside traditional channels such as direct mail.

“We wanted a system that would give us greater reliability and flexibility over our mobile notifications whilst allowing us to retain in-house administration and control of the distribution,” says Enrique Gamero, service manager, GISS. “Derdack’s software closely met our needs and it has enabled us to effectively manage the use of SMS push notifications for rapid and secure public communications.”

The notification technology was implemented by SIA, Derdack’s local sales and support partner. The system now acts as a centralised notification hub for more than 80 business applications used by GISS that issue SMS notifications. SIA created an internal web service interface that allows each application to send SMS messages via the notification hub, which manages delivery to the end-recipient over the mobile network.

The notification hub operates behind GISS’s firewall, which ensures the highest level of security for the department as it eliminates the requirement to use any external services or intermediaries. Derdack’s notification software now provides a reliable and robust method of sending the growing volume of SMS communications, which exceed 12 million messages per year.

“Maintaining security and privacy for our public SMS notifications is a primary goal, and Derdack’s solution provides us with the high level of control that we were looking for,” says Gamero. “We were attracted to Derdack’s technology as they specialise in enterprise notifications. We now have the ability to easily connect new applications and services to the centralised notification hub as our business needs change.”

Although GISS uses a single mobile operator for distribution of the SMS messages, Derdack’s notification solution can connect to any mobile network. This means that if GISS moves to a new mobile operator it can do so with minimal impact on the business as it will not interfere with how the notification hub manages and routes the SMS messages.

The implementation of centralised notifications enables GISS to have greater control over which applications and departments are sending SMS notifications as all messages must go through the hub. Additionally, Derdack’s solution provides full real-time reporting and tracking and allows billing information from the mobile operator to be validated.

“Our SMS push notification volumes are increasing month by month but I am confident that Derdack’s solution will provide us with the capability to manage this growth effectively,” adds Gamero. “It has given us a future proof method of sending important public SMS communications. By providing faster, more efficient notifications we have enhanced the service that we provide to private citizens whilst minimising our costs and improving our operational agility.”

“The use of mobile push notifications for public communications is a growing trend in many countries,” says Matthes Derdack, managing director of Derdack. “I am delighted that our advanced notification solution has helped GISS to automate distribution of high volumes of notifications and optimise the use of SMS messaging as a communication channel.”